Free Chrysalis Young by John Zanetti

and the outside audience as well.
    And Sarah.
    “Showtime,” Amanda said.
    “There are thousands of them,” Chrysalis said.
    “Time to light the fires and kick the something, I don’t remember what.”
    “Let’s not die tonight,” Chrysalis said.
    “Sword,” Amanda said.
    Warrior girl and dragon Chrysalis appeared centre stage. Sarah became a zombie. She lurched towards Chrysalis and Amanda, eyes staring, saliva from her open mouth already dripping onto her beautiful dress. The rest of the top 20 became zombies. For a brief and shocking moment the audience thought it was all part of the show. Until the audience in the auditorium turned to zombies and became part of the show too. Amanda vanished the mask. It had always got in the way and now it didn’t matter—they had just changed to their disguises in full view of the world.
    Chrysalis killed every alien in the auditorium in a matter of seconds. Sarah sank to the floor looking confused. Amanda’s father, Joanna, and Beatrice were frozen in their seats, stuck in a no-man’s land of incomprehension as though they had wandered into the wrong theatre by mistake. Around them, the zombies suddenly stopped slavering and acting crazy, and sank back into their seats, staring vacantly or looking around, bewildered.
    In a variation of the Pied Piper tactic, warrior girl Amanda and dragon Chrysalis headed for the side entrance to the lowest levels of the auditorium, pushing ex-zombies out of the way, until they were racing down the connecting corridor which led out into the wide, glass-lined foyer. In the foyer they skidded to a stop. Pressing up against the tall windows were hundreds of zombies, and behind them, out in the parking lot, were thousands. The only plan they had, called for them to draw the zombies away from the people in the auditorium.
    “Blow the windows,” Chrysalis said.
    “It’s a done deal,” Amanda said. Although it was going to be a little trickier than that because when she released the bomb, she had to make sure that she didn’t take out any of the supporting concrete pillars and they were still only a few metres from the doors to the auditorium behind them. She selected the widest part between the pillars and was about to rush up to the window when all of the glass shattered inwards. Blood-soaked zombies, carved up by the breaking glass, staggered towards them.
    They fought their way outside, still trying to draw the zombies away from the building.
    “Releasing clones,” Amanda said. “Let’s do a triangle pattern.”
    “Okay,” Chrysalis said.
    Amanda released Amanda 2 and Amanda 3. The clones ran on automatic. A2 and A3 hurled fireballs and sliced up zombies, working their way outwards, making the borders of the triangle until they were at the two furthest points with Amanda holding the third point at the windows. Chrysalis followed along, killing aliens inside the triangle.
    “We’re done,” Amanda said, when she and the clones had finished setting the borders.
    Chrysalis finished killing all of the aliens in the triangle. “Done,” she said. This was a particularly effective tactic because they had found that the aliens were confused by the triangle shape for reasons that were unknown and didn’t matter. They started working another triangle off one of the borders, and with all of the ‘bewildered’ clogging access to them on one side, they had a handy buffer zone.
    This worked for a while until thousands more of the zombies began to pour in from side streets around the Horsey Centre. Soon all three Amandas were struggling to keep the zombies away from Chrysalis.
    “A bomb would be good now,” Chrysalis said.
    “Yeah, let’s do that,” Amanda said. She sent new instructions to A2 and A3 through the minder. All three Amandas killed their way outwards from Chrysalis and released bombs. It didn’t matter that Chrysalis was within the killing zone of the bombs—she was unaffected by them. They bombed the zombies in a